


Abed’s Semi-Controllable Christmas

by chronicle23



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28293648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicle23/pseuds/chronicle23
Summary: Set over winter break during S6, Abed’s been cooking up a special project to help Jeff confront his ghosts, à laA Christmas Carolstyle.
Relationships: Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34





	Abed’s Semi-Controllable Christmas

Jeff watches the snowflakes swirl lazily in the mechanical snow globe as he downs the rest of his scotch. It’s Christmas Eve, and somehow he always ends up at a bar on the eve of Christ’s birth, while the functioning people of the world wrap presents and hang stockings by the chimney with care.

Britta is also not one of those functioning people, so she’s working tonight, and he’s keeping her company. Well, he’s drinking and she occasionally comes over to chat for thirty seconds before returning her attention to the people who are actually tipping her. It doesn’t matter though. He’s survived another semester of bullshit teaching and now the reward is three weeks off, free to do whatever he wants and not talk to anyone.

Maybe it’s the promise of those empty three weeks and wanting to treat himself to something, because he lets himself drink a little more than he usually would now (he’s tried to cut back since almost accidentally killing himself on his birthday last year). Okay, he lets himself drink _a lot_ more than he usually does now. By the time Britta brings his tab over, he’s watching the Christmas lights strung across the bar dance and twinkle, even though they aren’t moving. He sees her brow furrow.

“I’m gonna get you an Uber,” Jeff hears her say.

“No need,” he says, fumbling for his keys, but Britta’s already holding them up with her index finger. 

“Let’s not flood the ER tonight with another idiot.”

Jeff laughs. “Fine.”

“Want me to pick you up sometime tomorrow so you can get your car?” she asks him, pulling out a rag to wipe down where his drinks piled up.

“You’re not going to your parents’ house?”

“No, are you going to yours?” she asks, looking up with a smirk.

“Fair enough.”

“We had lunch yesterday and exchanged gifts. Figured it would be more our speed. Spending an entire day together plus fifteen loud Swedish relatives wasn’t a good idea.”

“So what are you going to do tomorrow? Hang out with the roomies?” he teases, his words slurring.

“Annie’s at her parents’. Abed is… I really don’t know. He said he has a project he’s working on. So I’m just going to chill. Get Chinese food, finally have the TV to myself, maybe go to the movies.”

“Lame.”

“Better than whatever pity party you’ve got going on,” Britta shoots back. She’s quiet for a minute, and stops cleaning. “You could come over, if you want. Nothing weird. Just, you know. If you want to.”

Jeff’s too drunk to think about the million ways that could end right now. “Nah, tomorrow marks the beginning of my three week hibernation from society. I’ll text you.”

She grabs his glass and turns away. “Okay. Your Uber’s probably here.”

By the time he gets home, all he can manage to do is stumble to his bed and fall face first into the pillow. Sometime later, he wakes up, suddenly cold and much more sober. He gropes around the bed for another layer. 

“Blanket?” someone who sounds a lot like Abed asks him.

Jeff shoots up like a rocket. Sure enough, there’s Abed, perched in the chair in the corner, watching him like a Syphnx cat. Jeff rubs his eyes a few times to make sure he’s seeing clearly, but it appears that he indeed is. “What the hell are you doing here at 3:00 in the morning?”

“Relax, Jeff. I come in peace. I’m here to take you on a journey.”

“Of what fucking kind?”

“The journey of Jeff Winger: Christmas past, present, and future,” he says, panning his hands in a dramatic fashion. “A Dreamatorium primetime special.”

“Okay, look. I know your parents didn’t give you enough attention as a baby, but I’m gonna kindly need you to get the fuck out.”

“No can do.”

“Abed, I’m serious. Go home.”

Abed shrugs. Jeff groans and goes over to him, ready to drag him out by the arm. But when he goes to grab him, nothing happens. It’s like touching air.

“I’m a ghost,” he explains simply, like Jeff’s a confused preschooler.

But Jeff isn’t having it. “Come on, Abed. Are you freaking out about Christmas again? You know it’s fine to be alone on Christmas, right? Do you want me to call Duncan?” 

“Nope. I’m fine. I’m here for you. Just go with it Jeff, it’ll make it a lot easier.”

Jeff’s still drunk, that’s what this is. It’s a weird, alcohol-fueled nightmare. He just has to slap himself awake and he’ll be fine. He tries it, but it doesn’t work. 

Abed watches him try and fail a few more times. “Well. Let’s get going. We don’t have all night. And due to lack of spectral availability, I’ll be your guide for all three of tonight’s events.”

Jeff opens his mouth to protest, but Abed snaps his fingers and everything goes black. He snaps them again and Jeff is standing in the living room of his parents’ house. There’s a scraggly tree up in the corner, and two boxes under the tree. 

“Remember this?”

“Uh…” He does remember it, but isn’t sure how he’s looking at a perfect replica. It must’ve been really good scotch. Or maybe Britta had spiked it, added some kind of healing herb to prevent hangovers that actually had psychedelic properties. 

“Christmas 1983. This was the last Christmas your parents were together before your dad left. And don’t worry, we can’t be seen or heard. So just sit back and relax.”

Jeff watches the nine year-old version of himself run to the tree to open his presents. His mother watches silently from the couch, a cup of coffee in her hand. She looks tired. There’s bags under her eyes. His dad is nowhere in sight. He opens the boxes, the small one first. It’s a baseball glove. Then he opens the bigger one. It’s a puppy, a fuzzy Golden Retriever with a red bow tied around his neck.

“Chewy,” Jeff remembers. He watches himself hug the puppy and then his mom, and then stops when he sees his father looking on from the doorway. He scoffs at Jeff cradling the dog and turns around, slamming the front door as he takes off, to spend the day doing who knows what. Jeff now has a pretty good idea of what he was doing, in retrospect. 

“Rough,” Abed remarks. “Let’s go to next year.”

Next year is in the new apartment his mom rented after his dad left and she couldn’t afford the mortgage anymore. He remembers that pets weren’t allowed, and Chewy went to live with Simon Walters and his perfect family across the street in their old neighborhood. His mom has tried somewhat to decorate the apartment, but there isn’t a lot of room and she doesn’t have much time since she’s always working now. So there’s a stocking for him with some candy and socks, one strand of garland on the TV stand, and a Santa candle on the foldout table. No tree. His gifts are just waiting on the worn couch they got from Goodwill when he wakes up, unwrapped. He gets a pack of baseball cards and a new coat. His mom gives him a sad smile as she leaves the room and goes to cry in the kitchen. Jeff watches himself peek around the corner at his mother and then run to his room, sitting on his bed to cry himself.

“Abed, I don’t see the point of this. My dad was an asshole. We all know this.”

“Well, the point is that you’re supposed to look back and see where your issue started. This was your worst Christmas. Do you want to see your best one?”

“The one that’s happening when I wake up today and everyone leaves me alone?”

“No,” Abed says and snaps his fingers, “This one.”

Jeff blinks. Now they’re in Britta’s old apartment. This must be the year they were secretly screwing around. He sees himself and Britta sitting on the couch and laughing. A Charlie Brown Christmas tree twinkles in the corner. The TV is on; _Seinfeld_ plays in the background. Britta is wearing the cat socks he gave her and an old sweater. They’re eating Chinese food and drinking beer. He remembers Britta gave him a house plant “for company” and cruelty-free aftershave. They’d gone to his mom’s house earlier in the day, which wasn’t horrible. He’d been nervous about seeing her after she found out about him lying about being a lawyer, and brought Britta along as his new fake girlfriend as a peace offering. 

He remembered she’d asked him why his mom didn’t decorate for Christmas on the way home, and he’d told her his mom stopped doing that after his dad left. Britta got a weird look in her eyes and asked him to stop a few blocks before their regular Chinese place. She pulled him into an alley and around a corner to a nearly empty Christmas tree lot. It was desolate with barely anything left, just some garland and handful of tree rejects. Britta grabbed the smallest one. Jeff remembered asking her what the hell she was doing. She just smiled and slid a $10 bill under the door of the trailer where the lot attendant usually was. 

He remembered that they had to dig the string of lights out of her closet when they brought it back, dry needles all over the floor and her cat batting at the branches. A few of the lights were burnt out. But when it was set up, it looked just fine.

“Looks nice, doesn’t it?” Abed asks. “That was the first tree you’d had since you were nine.”

Jeff watches himself looking at Britta as she’s laughing and telling him some story between bites of fried rice. When she stops, he’s still just looking at her. He remembers why. Because everything in that moment was just _too much,_ the entirety of the universe and all its secrets held behind the blue pools of Britta’s eyes, a promise of the kind of things he secretly wanted but couldn’t allow himself to want because it wouldn’t last. Nothing good ever lasted. But he wanted it to, and he wanted her to know that.

“Britta,” he finally hears himself say quietly. He tucks a srand of golden hair behind her ear. She doesn’t flinch this time. She waits for him to say something else, and when she realizes he can’t, she leans over and kisses him softly, so softly that Jeff almost wants to look away, the moment seeming suddenly too intimate to watch. He can’t escape the nagging feeling of being an intruder in his own life.

“That was when you really fell for her,” Abed reminds him. “Because she knew what you were saying without you having to say it out loud. You guys were inseparable after that. Until, you know. When I outed you in the spring.”

Oh yeah, he remembers all right. It had been good before, but it had felt like a totally different level after that night. After that, he couldn’t get enough of her. He could talk to her without having to say anything at all and she just knew. They had inside jokes, code names, secret looks. All of it. And Abed was right, they’d been inseparable. It had been a new and welcoming phenomenon, having someone to go home to every night. But these are all memories that Jeff had long ago shoved away into some dark closet in the very back of his mind. Because, much like the sad holidays from his childhood, it was just easier to tuck these things away and pretend they hadn’t happened, ignoring how things might be if things had ended differently, because it was simple. The good stuff didn’t last. 

But what if it did? What if his dad hadn’t been emotionally withdrawn and taught him to properly function? What if his parents’ relationship hadn’t been the textbook example of a dysfunctional marriage? And what if Abed had never said anything about him and Britta that spring? What if either of them had the balls to talk about things? Would they still be cozied up like this, like some scene out of a movie?

“So, while this is nice, we do have to get going,” Abed announces, pulling Jeff out of his reverie. He takes a final look at the two of them. It seems like so long ago. They’re both different people now, he reminds himself, and this would never happen now. But still, he wonders how he has successfully managed to forget that they were ever this close. Or did he ever really to manage to forget? He thinks of all the stops and starts since that year, the almost marriages, the four-hour engagement, the long looks across the study table, the several times he almost texted her in the middle of the night.

“Next stop, Christmas present!” Abed loudly announces like some kind of weird train conductor, revealing Britta again. This time she’s situated in apartment 303. She’s half-heartedly watching TV as she knits, a box of fried rice open in front of her. Her one-eyed cat is perched beside her, swishing his tail back and forth. The scene is cozy, but she looks discontent, he notices. Jeff watches her glance at her phone. She wavers, then picks it up and hurriedly skims through it for messages, typing something to someone. He kind of already knows who she’s waiting to hear from. Or so he thinks.

“You bailed on her again.” 

“What do you mean, again?”

“Just in general. You can never commit to anything with her, even if it’s just simple plans. So you bail. Let’s see what she does next.” 

Britta shuts off the TV and throws her food in the fridge. She grabs her coat and heads outside. She walks down a few blocks to the old cinema, the one she was always asking him to go to. He eventually did relent and they went a few times that year, eating semi-stale popcorn and watching classic reruns. Today, they’re playing _Pulp Fiction._ She buys a matinee ticket and Abed trails them behind her as she takes a seat in the back row. The theater is peppered with a handful of stragglers. Jeff takes in the sight of her: classic Britta, leather jacket and all, even on Christmas. A tall man in a flannel shirt and beanie waves to her and motions to the seat beside her. She gives him a small smile, looking a bit unsure, but Jeff can tell she knows him. He isn’t some stranger. 

“Oh come on, Britta, who’s this?” Jeff asks, even though he knows she can’t hear him.

“That’s Sam,” Abed answers for him. “She met him at the bar after you went home last night.”

“And they’re hanging out, right now? She just hangs out with random guys now? What if he murders her?”

“A chance she’s willing to take, I suppose.” 

Jeff runs his hand over his face and watches as Sam leans closer to her, saying something that makes her laugh. He looks away. Abed pans to Jeff’s apartment, where he’s halfway through another bottle of scotch and half-asleep in front of some football game. He shouldn’t be surprised at the pitifully accurate scene. That was what he’d said he’d wanted, after all. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Ready for next year?”

“Not really, but I guess I don’t have a choice,” Jeff begrudgingly replies.

“Good. You’re learning.”

Next year doesn’t look much different than this year for Jeff, who’s still spending the holiday with his good friends, liquor and television. But he does look older and worse for wear, like a high mileage sedan nearing the end of its useful years.

“What’s everybody else doing?” Jeff asks.

“Do you mean Britta?”

“No, did I say Britta?”

“Didn’t have to. You were asking silently. But if you must know, Annie moved to Denver, I moved to LA, and Britta moved back to New York. It’s just you now. The last of the group.”

“What the hell? Why the exodus?”

“People weren’t content to sit around and not pursue better opportunities.”

“Like what?”

“Annie got a job, I got a job, and Britta got a job and a boyfriend.”

“A who?”

“I’ll just show you,” Abed sighs. Jeff watches the scene unfold. Britta is walking on the sidewalk of some street in New York, wreaths and holiday lights brightening up the grittiness of the city. It’s quiet because it’s Christmas day, but a few people are still out and about. Snow flurries twirl in the air, collecting on Britta’s wool coat and mittens and in the curls of her hair. She’s carrying a brown paper bag of takeout food and her boots leave rough footprints in the dusting of snow, like a ghost. She looks beautiful, Jeff thinks, and happy. He watches as she stops and meets someone outside of a row of brownstones. It’s Sam. Waves of dread, thick and heavy, spread from his chest and settle somewhere in his stomach. 

They exchange a quick kiss, smiling and laughing like they have a secret no one else knows as they head upstairs to their apartment. Jeff spots a tree in their window, twinkling triumphantly and welcoming them home. He hates it.

Abed reads his thoughts. “Not what you had in mind?”

“I just don’t get how all of that could happen in a year. Seems like a stretch.”

“Jeff, people exist outside of the time you spend with them.”

“I know that. I’m not that stupid or selfish.”

“I just mean that everyone isn’t going to stay where they are in life just because it feels okay to you. It might not feel okay to them.”

“Again, I know this.”

“I’m not sure that you do. I’m not sure that you realize moving out of your comfort zone every so often is a positive thing. And nothing changes if you don’t. True, there aren’t negative changes, but there are also no positive changes. You’re just stuck in this endless mediocre space, yielding nothing.”

Jeff watches Britta and Sam and ponders that, the idea of yielding nothing. Maybe Abed has a point embedded in there somewhere. 

“But that’s all the time we have tonight. Jeff, I hope you enjoyed this evening’s events. And if you ever decide to tell someone about tonight, trust me, they won’t believe you.”

Jeff rolls his eyes. “I think you’re giving yourself too much cred-” He’s cut off as everything goes black and he gets the feeling that he’s falling and speeding toward the ground.

He wakes up with a start. The first thing he does is check the chair in the corner, but it’s innocently empty. No Abed in sight, no signs of whatever the hell last night was. The next thing he notices is that it’s light outside. It’s morning. 6:30. 

Jeff grabs his keys before he remembers his car is still at the Vatican. Can you get an Uber on Christmas at 6:30 in the morning? Is that something you should even morally do? He decides probably not and digs through his closet for his running shoes. He’s not really in any condition to run with the faint throbbing inside his skull and a mouth that feels like he swallowed steel wool. It also looks cold as bricks outside and he’s pretty sure he spots a few snowflakes idly falling from the clouds. But his options are limited, so he laces up and layers up and heads out the door.

It’s not that far to apartment 303. It’s actually closer to him than her old place, and he used to run between his and hers all the time that year. But he’s slow this morning, every part of his body protesting in full force. Everything feels like it’s going to fall apart, but whatever weird crap Abed put him through last night is guiding each footstep: nothing changes unless you stop sitting around and actually try something.

Jeff’s legs are loose spaghetti and he can smell scotch vapors emitting from his pores as he climbs the final few steps to the third floor of Britta’s building. He goes to knock and realizes it’s probably only just after 7:00. Britta is not a morning person; this he knows from firsthand experience. But Jeff doesn’t have anywhere else to go or anything else to do, so he just decides to knock. 

It takes a few attempts before the door slowly creaks open, revealing Britta looking half-asleep, her eyes narrowed into angry slits and rogue strands of yesterday’s braid escaping around her face.

She cuts straight to the point when she sees who’s responsible for the noise. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Merry Christmas?” he tries.

“No,” she says, ready to shut the door. “Call me at a normal hour and I’ll bring you to get your car. Bye.”

He's suddenly fueled by the adrenaline from his run, giving him confidence he doesn’t really have. “Britta, wait. Do you want to… can we get a tree later?”

She looks him up and down like he’s grown a second head, and honestly, that’s not far off from how he feels. “Did you hit your head last night or something?”

“Something like that. Is that tree place still open?”

She shrugs. It’s weirding him out that she isn’t weirded out by his sudden interest in Christmas trees. “They always close on Christmas Eve. But sure, we can raid the lot later. I don’t have anything else going on.”

So no plans with Sam, then. “Thank God,” he says out loud.

“What is wrong with you today? You’re acting real weird.”

“Nothing, I just... I know we don’t talk about this stuff, and I’ve bailed on you way too many times, but I do like hanging out with you. Always have. And I know I give you a lot of crap but I really do like you. Still really like you. A lot. Just wanted you to know that.” 

She narrows her eyes, then smiles. “You like me, huh? That’s embarrassing.”

“A little,” he agrees with a tentative smile. He stuffs his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt and waits awkwardly. He doesn’t know what to say now, and he can feel any shreds of confidence he had left dissipating rapidly. She holds his gaze, waiting. This was how it always went with her. When they stopped the jokes and the arguing and the bullshit, it was the quiet and stillness and ripples of possibility that scared them both. That was too fragile, one wrong move could make everything collapse. Their chaos was hardier, more sustainable.

But just like all those times before, Britta already seems to know this. She reaches up and kisses him, softly. A kiss with no hidden intentions, just a reassurance. Softness and quiet are not things either of them are good at or comfortable with, Jeff thinks. Noise and recklessness are easier. But when they’re together, they are, somehow, better at both of these things. His hand has found hers when they part, and she leads him inside. 

“Since somebody woke me up way too early, I’m taking a nap. You can get started on breakfast and find the lights for the tree,” she tells him, heading back to her pile of blankets on the sleep sofa. “I think Abed has pancake mix in there somewhere.”

Jeff rummages through the fridge and cabinets, taking inventory of his options. After he’s pulled out Britta’s weird vegan sausage and some frozen fruit, he finds the pancake mix. Abed’s left a note on it. _Good choice, Jeff,_ it reads. On paper, it doesn’t make sense, but much like everything else about today, somehow, it just works. 


End file.
